Red Mission was one of Kai Patterson's first major productions. He started conceptualizing the short film's premise around the summer of 2014 and wrote the script during his winter break from his sophomore year of college.

 

     December 2014, Just before the break was over, he emailed friends and colleagues to see if they would be available to help him produce this massive vision. Luckily, most of Patterson's first-picks were not only available for the project, but also extremely excited to work on it. Patterson's original plan was to finish the film in time for the 11th Annual Principia College Film Festival, which meant there were about 5 months to shoot, edit, and score the film. If you want to explore more about how this film was made then watch the Behind The Scenes video by clicking here.

 

     Principal photography began in the middle of March 2015 and ended in early April. Patterson edited and created the visual effects during principle photography and all the while attending classes at Principia College.  

 

     The film was finished one week before the festival, and debuted May 1st, 2015. Red Mission won 2 awards that night: Best Picture Judges' Choice and Best Picture Viewers' Choice.

 

     After a few months of unsuccessful submissions to international film festivals, Patterson decided to release the short film through YouTube. The film's online release was Halloween 2015. The original online release can be viewed on youtube by clicking here.

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In 2020, Patterson revisited Red Mission and began remastering it in 4K.  He made all new VFX shots, recolored parts that had always bothered him in the 2015 cut, worked with his friend Aaron Switzer to completely remaster the music and sound design, and edited it all together until he was finally satisfied with the end product.  The 2020 remaster was uploaded to YouTube exactly 5 years after the original.